


The Hungry Cosmos

by spacehopper



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Dishonored fusion, Jon as god of the Void, M/M, Top Jon, apotheosis, bottom Elias
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-05 22:01:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15872574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacehopper/pseuds/spacehopper
Summary: Something inside Jon had always hungered.





	The Hungry Cosmos

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Salamander](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salamander/gifts).



> While Dishonored fusion was the main prompt I was following, this was also an attempt to do a Dishonored take on "Jon is the Avatar of the Beholding," since I really liked that prompt too!

Before him was a book.

It perched on a black walnut table, battered green binding marked with an accusing golden eye. Around him were vast, empty halls, the echo of whale song and the creak of vines long silenced. As he approached it in careful, measured steps, the sound was muffled by the thick carpet which sprung to life beneath his feet. The book was warm when he plucked it from the table, leather smoothed by countless hands that would someday touch it. He ran a finger along a page, crisp and sharp, and did not start when it cut, the blood flowing onto the paper and forming curling letters.

A door slammed, and Elias looked up.

Before him was a man.

Jon, he thought. But would not speak, the syllable wrenched from his lips by the Void before he could dare utter it. Jon had been cut away, leaving only dark eyes and darker curiosity in its wake. 

“Archivist,” he said instead, and the being before him shuddered.

A blink, and Jon was beside him, cold fingers digging into his throat, the clinging carpet rising to entrap his calves. Odd, how human he still felt. How humid and living the breath that teased its way into his ear.

“What did you do to me?” Jon hissed. Furious and powerful, and still so lost. Elias couldn’t help it. He laughed.

“I’ve made you a god.”

The hands tightened around his throat.

Elias awoke. 

_____

When Elias had asked if the audiograph player was fixed, Martin had regarded him with wary eyes, then gave him a perfunctory nod. Someday he would understand, and perhaps Jon would visit him as well, lingering affection underlaid with something deeper. But not today, or any day soon. No, Jon would hide and Jon would deny and Jon would desperately seek out a solution he didn’t truly want. 

And then he would understand.

The audiograph player clicked on, and Elias began to speak. 

“Jonathan Sims was born in Whitecliff in 1988, and he had never been ordinary. Oh, the tragic childhood was standard enough, the death of his parents, his caring but distant grandmother. How he’d never made many friends, always a little strange, a tendency that morphed into a contemptuous superiority as he grew into a teenager.” 

He paced around the desk, regarding the chair with its green velvet cushion. A curious affectation, perhaps some remnant of those who had come before. But it was a curiosity to be pondered another day. Elias did not sit, instead resting his hands on the desk as he continued.

“All this would only have brought him a quiet descent into academic solitude, and a death from lung cancer, mourned only by a few.”

The air shivered around him, and Elias shivered in response. Truly it had been a stroke of genius to build the Institute here, in the ruins of a Serkonan mine that had once been filled with silver and blood, and then nothing at all. A seemingly unremarkable construction, allowed to watch, only watch, for even as the power of the Overseers waned, dark magics remained verboten. Or at least on paper they did, even as Empress Emily and her successors funneled money to discover what secrets the Void might hold, in the absence of a god.

The edges of the room blurred, and Elias smiled.

“But something inside Jon hungered.”

The green cushion wavered and twisted, dye running, pooling rank and black on the floor. The chair remained, hard and wooden and twisted. Elias reached for it, then stopped, instead placing his hands flat on the desk, still solid and whole. 

“If that was an attempt at prayer, it was a bad one.”

Behind him, but Elias didn’t turn to look, his gaze fixed on the Void, twisting like the chair. If Jon wanted to be seen, he would. 

“I didn’t think you’d want meaningless platitudes. I simply spoke the truth.”

The desk fell away, and Elias with it, grunting as his knees hit barren stone, the remnants of the Institute were stripped around him. Jagged edges cut into his hands. Not stone. Paper. 

“So now you’ll worship me, and I’ll just give you what you want?” His words echoed strangely, his chest hollowed out to contain that which could not be contained. 

“Nothing of the sort. I’d be disappointed if you broke so easily. I expect you to serve in the capacity you see fit.” But Jon, much as he might fight it, would walk the path Elias had set. Or Elias would never have chosen him, would not be kneeling here now. A god of his own creation, deserving of the worship he might claim. 

“And how do you know you’ll like what I choose?” Confusion under the anger, the pretense of hatred. Confusion, and curiosity. 

“I don’t.” 

“That excites you, doesn’t it?” 

Disgust, but with something darker underneath. The paper sharpened, and Elias dug his fingers deeper, letting the blood flow free. Words bloomed on the wrinkled pages. One day, Jon might read them. “I think I’m not alone in that.”

Elias blinked, and Jon was in front of him. 

“You think you know me.” He began pacing furiously, thumb worrying the hem of the dark jumper he wore even here. “I see—I see everything now. Cities crumbling to dust and others rising in their wake. You mean nothing. Everything returns here in the end.” He stopped in front of Elias, scuffed black oxfords only inches from crushing his hand.

“You’re scared,” Elias said, and waited. A toe lifted, rubber dealing a glancing blow to the back of Elias’s hand, before returning to place.

“Terrified.” A shaky laugh, a breath, and then the world around him solidified. Truly Jon was exceeding even his more optimistic estimates, something he would certainly bring up at the next meeting with the donors.

“Why did you do this to me?” Jon placed a hand on the back of his head, rubbing lightly against his scalp. Elias remained where he was. Prudent not to startle Jon when he likely didn’t have full control, and he couldn’t say he minded the position. Aching knees and bleeding fingers were a small price to pay for the sensation of Jon’s cool finger stroking along the edge of his ear, an echo of the intimacy that had been forming between them. Before.

“At the time of your birth, the stars—” He couldn’t quite stop the hiss of breath as Jon’s nails dug into his scalp. Had they always been so sharp?

“Oh, don’t you start. I know it plays well with your little cult, but you don’t—”

“Would you like the truth, Jon?”

“Yes, that would be nice for once.”

“Then look.”

Jon’s grip loosened, and Elias lifted his head as the world rushed around them, the very fabric of this outer shell of reality changing, paper folding into the complex shape of monsters and people and monsters that had once been people. Nikola Orsinov’s blank staring face burned, and a massive tomb rose like an altar in her place. Before it stood Jon, Elias at his back, a hand on his shoulder. Under his grip Jon relaxed, leaning into the touch. 

Then Elias pressed a kiss to his crown, and slit his throat.

As the final act played out, what had once been Jon stared impassively, eyes darkening just as the pages of the book did, heavy and black with blood. The Elias crafted from sharp folds of paper gently lifted Jon’s body, setting him on a low stone altar, then placing the closed book on his chest.

And the Archivist laughed. 

“You really care, don’t you?” He circled Elias now, footsteps crunching on the paper strewn ground. Blood spread beneath Elias’s hands as the folds twisted into needles. “Even after what you did. You sick, twisted bastard.”

“Peter says I’m a fool.” A calculated confession. Jon could see through it, if he wanted. 

“He’s right.” Jon had stopped behind him. There was a faint rustling of paper as he knelt, steadying himself with a hand on Elias’s hip. A finger followed the line of Elias’s waist, the curve of his arse, and he made no effort to hide his reaction, letting Jon feel him shudder. “Is this what you want?”

“I think you know the answer.”

Hands tightened around his thighs, hard enough to bruise. In the empty silence, Elias heard Jon breathe, though he had no need of breath. 

“Damn you, Elias.”

Even in the moment, Elias couldn’t tell if Jon had simply pulled his trousers down, or torn them away, or cast the offending fabric into the Void. All he knew was that suddenly his skin was bare, and Jon was hot and hard against him. Had it been their conversation? The reenactment of Jon’s demise? Or perhaps Elias supplicating himself before Jon, for once seemingly ceding control. Or maybe none of those at all. Dangerous to assume, and despite what Peter might think, Elias was no fool.

“Is this what you want?” Jon repeated, voice hoarse and hollow as he thrust into Elias. Nothing had been done to prepare, and yet it was not painful. Not in the way Elias had expected. 

His stomach dropped, and for just a moment he saw what he had searched for his whole life. The endless aching Void, all that Jon had spoken of, reality spread before him in swirling tatters. And Jon’s hands enfolding his hips, the paper he knelt on cutting words into his palms, his arms, more and further. 

Then it all dropped away, and Jon was still there, hot and heavy above him, inside him. Something wrapped around Elias’s cock, not Jon’s hand, or at least not the hands Jon had as a human, reaching with his power to grip and tug and pull. Elias tried to speak, but found his mouth stuffed with paper, melting on his tongue. 

“For once, can you be silent?” Jon’s voice hitched, and his rhythm increased, while his fingers seemed to lengthen to encircle Elias’s waist. He knew that if he looked, he would only see Jon. He did not look.

A spark inside him, whether the natural stimulation of his prostate, or more of Jon’s dark magic Elias wasn’t certain. Either would come from Jon, and neither truly natural. A god held him, ecstatic and exultant. Another tug of phantom fingers, and Elias came, the paper between his lips muffling his soft cry.

Jon stopped. He did not pull out, but nor did he move as Elias’s tensed around him. His hand reached forward, his mortal hand of flesh and bone, shifting the angle between them painfully to clutch Elias’s own hand. 

“I hope you enjoy your reward.” The words slithered into Elias’s ear, loathing and longing in equal measure. His hand burned, inflamed before his eyes, skin crinkling like so much paper and dissolving into ash.

Then, he fell.

_____

“Gloves, Elias? Really?” Peter, pretending he wasn’t curious, that he was simply judging Elias, all while trying to needle him into some sort of confession. Elias would play his game as a rule. It often had interesting results. But in this case—

He rubbed the back of his hand and smiled. “I find that in my old age, my circulation simply isn’t what it used to be.”

The only reaction was a slight narrowing of his eyes, but that to be expected. He took his leave, of the Lukases, the Fairchilds, the Boyles, of Aleksandra Sokolov and her strange little band of worshipers. He returned to his office, lay on the small cot there, and watched the party spin on, the spineless masses desperate for the smallest whiff of power.

And then he slept.

Jon knelt by his bedside, hands wrapped around the marked skin, now bare of concealing fabric. 

“I don’t know why I did this,” Jon said, brow furrowed in frustration, eyes dark and empty and hungry, always hungry.

“Because this is what you wanted,” Elias said. He pulled his hand out of Jon’s grasp, and weaving his fingers through Jon’s hair. “You were always meant to be the Archivist.”

Then he pulled Jon forward, and with hot lips and tongue spoke the prayer that Jon wanted to hear.

“How do you know I won’t destroy you?” The Archivist said when they parted, eyes empty and dark as the Void. 

“I don’t.”

The Archivist laughed, and kissed him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from [this in game book.](http://dishonored.wikia.com/wiki/The_Hungry_Cosmos)  
> 


End file.
